Wonderful to come across this new article from Michael Dirda at Barnes & Noble Review, which offers — in typical Dirda fashion — a thoroughly absorbing, insightful, and well-written treatment of a fun and fascinating subject: Over the past few months Iâve read, or reread, some of the most famous stories about mummies, Egyptian curses,…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
Sadness and Awe: A YouTube playlist
I assembled this a couple of months ago, near the end of the college semester, as background accompaniment for the mountain of papers and exams that I was then grading. It also works as an expressive playlist for greeting and fulfilling emotions of cosmic melancholy and infinite solitude, with a couple of palate-cleansing musical moments…
Jan Svankmajer: “A puppet is a magical object”
A puppet is a magical object. It is not a toy, is it? Here they see it as puppet theatre, as puppets for kids. But it’s just not like that. These native tribes — in Africa or Oceania, etc. — the shamans use puppets in communication not only with the upper world, with the gods,…
Reviews of ‘Ghosts, Spirits, and Psychics’
Today I was pleased to spot a new and positive assessment of my paranormal encyclopedia from a reviewer for the American Library Association’s Reference and User Services Association (RUSA): Producing a reference book about the paranormal presents a unique challenge. Various aspects of the phenomenon — under the rubric of âthe supernaturalâ — have been…
T. E. D. Klein’s second novel ‘Nighttown’ to become a reality after all?
Mirabile dictu, word has emerged that T. E. D. Klein’s second novel Nighttown, which has been delayed for the past 30 years, may actually see the light of day. Remember back in the late 1980s when Nighttown was announced all over the place? Viking, who published Klein’s previous two books — the now classic Dark Gods…
The world’s misery, distress, and irony: Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, Movement 3
“Mahler described the movement in November 1900: ‘On the surface one might imagine this scenario: A funeral procession passes by our hero, and the misery, the whole distress of the world, with its cutting contrasts and horrible irony, grasps him.'”
Announcing the birth of “Vastarien: A Literary Journal”
“Birthday Boy” by Chris Mars (The following announcement was first posted yesterday at Thomas Ligotti Online and has now begun to propagate via social media. In addition to the fact that a journal like Vastarien will undoubtedly interest many readers of The Teeming Brain, I’m posting the info about it here for the pointedly personal…
Huston Smith and H. P. Lovecraft on transcendent longing and humanity’s fundamental dis-ease
From Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief by Huston Smith: The traditional worldview is preferable to the one that now encloses us because it allows for the fulfillment of the basic longing that lies in the depth of the human heart. . . . There is within…
Short Film: ‘2084’
Remember: You must conform. Better yet: Doughnut thing. (Watch for explanation.)
David Lynch: “A wild pain and decay accompanies everything”
Film critic A. S. Hamrah on the life, mind, and work of David Lynch, including his pursuit of a fearsome disease and darkness lurking in the heart of everything, including America: A nicotine fiend and a coffee addict who mixes existential dread with sadomasochism in all-American settings, Lynch is that rare director who makes subversive…